Former BBC Breakfast presenter Sian Williams takes a dim view of swearing on the television

It's not something she is ever likely to do, but Sian Williams says she takes a dim view of her colleagues swearing on TV.

The mother-of-four said she switches off her set when she hears bad language before the 9pm watershed.

But rather than getting upset about some of the more obvious four letter words, she said the phrase that angers her the most is 'Oh my God'.

Asked what made her switch off the TV, Miss Williams, 49, told the Radio Times: 'Swearing. I'm quite old-fashioned in that respect. I don't like people to use inappropriate language before the watershed. Particularly the phrase "oh my God" because it can offend.'

Miss Williams has two sons, Joss, 22, and Alex, 20, with her first husband Neale Hunt and a son Seth, seven, and daughter Eve, five, with her second husband Paul Woolwich.

The presenter said she regularly watches TV with her family, a habit that no doubt feeds her dislike of pre-watershed swearing.

She said: 'I allowed my five-year-old and seven-year-old to sit up and watch Britain's Got Talent with me. They couldn't watch all of it until the final when I relented because they really wanted to see it with us.

'My big boys, who are 22 and 20, convinced me I'd enjoy Breaking Bad even though it's about someone who sells drugs. My husband and I gorged on it.'

She added: 'I wasn't allowed to watch much TV [when I was young]. My dad was a print journalist and later a radio man, so in our house we tended to have the radio on.

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'He was radio news and I was radio current affairs. Nobody ever knew that we were related because there are lots of Williamses.'

In 2012, Miss Williams left BBC Breakfast after refusing to relocate her family to Salford after the show moved its studio to the North.

She has since cut down on her on-air responsibilities, and now hosts religious and ethical debating programme Sunday Morning Live once a week on BBC1 at 10am.

Williams left BBC Breakfast in 2012 after refusing to relocate her family to Salford after the show moved its studio to the North

She is also studying for a masters degree in Psychology at the University of Westminster, having become interested in the area after reporting on the Asian tsunami in 2004 and the Pakistan earthquake in 2008.

But despite giving up breakfast TV, she revealed she still has to put up with early starts because her youngest son constantly wakes her up first thing in the morning.

She said: '[I wake up] with a small boy trying to tug off the duvet: "Can I have my breakfast, Mum? Look it's light! Get out of bed, Mum!" And I say: "It's ten past five, go back to bed."'

Asked whether she would discuss her own religious and ethical beliefs on Sunday Morning Live, she said: 'I'm more interested in what other people say. That's the reason for me doing this job and the reason I'm studying for a Masters in Psychology at the moment. Somebody said to me once: "If you're talking, you're not learning."'